During the pandemic, the Following Young Fathers Further team partnered with the Nuffield funded Covid Realities study as members of a Special Interest Group that comprised teams of researchers across the UK that were examining the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on low-income families. The study had several ambitious aims and objectives, including:
- Drawing on evidence from welfare rights advisors to consider how the social security system and those reliant upon on it, respond to the pandemic;
- Collating data from ongoing studies to explore how families in poverty are experiencing the crisis now and in the longer term;
- Developing a dedicated space for researchers to consider how best to research with families in ethical and sensitive ways; and
- Supporting families themselves to document their experiences as they unfold.
We felt that working alongside a national group of social researchers and with young fathers and their families would enable us to better understand the impact that the crisis has on the parenting experiences of young men, to influence the evolving policy response to the pandemic in participatory ways, and contribute to a much longer history of evidence about how low-income families experience and respond in crisis contexts.
Dr Anna Tarrant is a co-editor of a new book from the study that will be published with Policy Press called COVID-19 Collaborations: Researching Poverty and Low-Income Family Life during the Pandemic, available soon!
The team have developed a fantastic, interactive website including a live archive where participants from low-income families have been sharing their experiences. We recommend that you take a look!
